Wainwright assured them that the Castle and Bell was a fine tavern and the housekeeper, disgusted with his treason, walked away. Sandman let out a breath of relief. 'Meg?' He turned to the girl. 'If there's anything you want to take to London, fetch it now. Sergeant?' Sandman could see the girl wanted to protest, maybe even hit him again, but he gave her no time to argue. 'Sergeant? Make sure the horses are watered. Perhaps the carriage should be brought to the tavern? Sally, my dear, make sure Meg has everything she needs. And Mister Wainwright,' Sandman turned and smiled at the Kent batsman, 'I'd take it as an honour if you'd show me the tavern? Don't I recall that you make bats? I would like to talk to you about that.'
The confrontation was over. Meg, even though she was bitter, was not trying to run away and Sandman dared to hope that all would be well. One conversation now, a dash to London, and justice, that rarest of all the virtues, would be done.
===OO=OOO=OO===
Meg was bitter, sullen and angry. She resented Sandman's incursion into her life, indeed she seemed to resent life itself and for a time, sitting in the back garden of the Castle and Bell, she refused even to talk with him. She stared into the distance, drank a glass of gin, demanded another in a whining voice and then, after Benjamin Wainwright had left to see how his team was faring, she insisted that Sandman take her back to Cross Hall. 'My chooks need looking after,' she snapped.
'Your chickens?' That surprised Sandman.
'I always liked hens,' she said defiantly.
Sandman, his cheek still stinging from her slap, shook his head in astonishment. 'I'm not taking you back to the house,' he growled, 'and you'll be damned lucky if you're not transported for life. Is that what you want? A voyage to Australia and life in a penal settlement?'
'Piss on you,' she retorted. She was dressed in a white bonnet and a plain brown serge dress that was spotted with chicken feathers. They were ugly clothes, yet they suited her for she was truly ill-favoured, yet also remarkably defiant. Sandman almost found himself admiring her belligerence, but he knew that strength was going to make her difficult to deal with. She was watching him with knowing eyes, and seemed to read his hesitation for she gave a short mocking laugh and turned away to look at the Seraphim Club's carriage, all dusty after its journey, which had just appeared on the village green. Berrigan was watering the horses at a duck pond while Sally, with some of the Sergeant's coins, was buying a jug of ale and another of gin. Pigeons were making a fuss in a newly harvested wheatfield just beyond the Castle and Bell's hedge while scores of swifts were lining the tavern's thatched ridge.
'You liked the Countess, didn't you?' Sandman said to Meg.
She spat at him just as Sally stalked out of the tavern. 'Bastards,' Sally said, 'bloody country bastards! They don't want to serve a woman!'
'I'll go,' Sandman offered.
'There's a potman bringing the jugs,' she said. 'They didn't want to serve me, but they changed their minds when I had words with them.' She flapped a hand at an irritating wasp, driving it towards Meg who gave a small scream and, when the insect would not leave her, began to cry with alarm. 'What are you napping your bib for?' Sally demanded, and Meg, uncomprehending, just stared at her. 'Why are you bleeding crying?' Sally translated. 'You've got no bleeding reason to cry. You've been swanning down here while that poor little pixie's waiting to be scragged.'
The potman, plainly terrified of Sally, brought a tray of tankards, glasses and jugs. Sandman poured ale into a pint tankard that he gave to Sally. 'Why don't you take that to the Sergeant?' he said. 'I'll talk with Meg.'
'Meaning you want me to fake away off,' Sally said.
'Give me a few minutes,' Sandman suggested. Sally took the ale and Sandman offered Meg a glass of gin, which she snatched from him. 'You were fond of the Countess, weren't you?' he asked her again.
'I've got nothing to say to you,' Meg said, 'nothing.' She drained the gin and reached for the
jug-
Sandman snatched the jug away from her. 'What's your name?'
'None of your business, and give me some bloody max!' She lunged at the jug, but Sandman held it away from her.
'What's your name?' Sandman asked again, and was rewarded with a kick on his shin. He poured some of the gin onto the grass and Meg immediately went very still and looked wary. 'I'm taking you to London,' Sandman told her, 'and you have two ways of going there. You can behave yourself, in which case it will be comfortable, or you can go on being rude, in which case I'm taking you to prison.'
'You can't do that!' she sneered.
'I can do what I damn well like!' Sandman snapped, astonishing her with his sudden anger. 'I have the Home Secretary's commission, miss, and you are concealing evidence in a murder case! Prison? You'll be damned lucky if it's only prison and not the gallows themselves.'
She glowered at him for a moment, then shrugged. 'My name's Hargood,' she said in a surly voice, 'Margaret Hargood.'
Sandman poured her another glass of gin. 'Where are you from, Miss Hargood?'
'Nowhere you bloody know.'
'What I do know,' Sandman said, 'is that the Home Secretary instructed me to investigate the murder of the Countess of Avebury. He did that, Miss Hargood, because he fears that a great injustice is about to be done.' The day that Viscount Sidmouth worried about an injustice to a member of the lower classes, Sandman reflected, was probably the day the sun rose in the west, but he could not admit that to the lumpen girl who had just sucked down her second gin as though she were dying of thirst. 'The Home Secretary believes, as I do,' Sandman went on, 'that Charles Corday never murdered your mistress. And we think you can confirm that.'
Meg held out her glass, but said nothing.
'You were there, weren't you,' Sandman asked, 'on the day the Countess was murdered?'
She jerked the glass, demanding more gin, but still said nothing.
'And you know,' Sandman went on, 'that Charles Corday did not commit that murder.'
She looked down at a bruised apple, a windfall, that lay on the grass. A wasp crawled on its wrinkled skin and she screamed, dropped the glass and clasped her hands to her face. Sandman stamped on the wasp, crushing the fruit. 'Meg,' he appealed to her.
'I ain't got nothing to say,' she watched the ground fearfully, evidently frightened that the wasp might resurrect itself.
Sandman picked up her glass, filled it and handed it to her. 'If you cooperate, Miss Hargood,' he said formally, 'then I shall ensure that nothing harmful happens to you.'
'I don't know nothing about it,' she said, 'nothing about any murder.' She looked defiantly at Sandman, her eyes as hard as flint.
Sandman signed. 'Do you want an innocent man to die?' The girl made no answer, but just twisted away from him to stare across the hedge and Sandman felt a rush of indignation. He wanted to hit her and was ashamed of the intensity of that desire, so intense that he stood and began to pace up and down. 'Why are you in the Marquess of Skavadale's house?' he demanded and got no reply. 'Do you think,' he went on, 'that the Marquess will protect you? He wants you there so that the wrong man can hang, and once Corday is dead then what use will you be to him? He'll kill you to stop you testifying against him. I'm just astonished he hasn't murdered you already.' That, at least, got some reaction from the girl, even if it was only to make her turn and stare at him. 'Think, girl!' Sandman said forcefully. 'Why is the Marquess keeping you alive? Why?'
'You don't know a bloody thing, do you?' Meg said scornfully.
'I'll tell you what I know,' Sandman said, his anger very close to violence. 'I know that you can save an innocent man from the gallows, and I know you don't want to, and that makes you an accomplice to murder, miss, and they can hang you for that.' Sandman waited, but she said nothing and he knew he had failed. The loss of his temper was a sign of that failure and he was ashamed of himself, but if the girl would not talk then Corday could not be saved. Meg, just with silence, could defeat him, and now more troubles, niggling and stupid troubles, piled upon him. He wanted to get Meg back to London swiftly, but Mackeson insisted that the horses were too tired to travel another mile and Sandman knew the coachman was right. That meant they would have to stay the night in the village and guard their three prisoners. Guard them, feed them, and keep an eye on the horses. Meg was put into the coach and its doors were tied and windows jammed with wedges and she must have slept, though twice
